May I Have a Moment?

Sometimes, when something wonderful is happening, I become intensely aware of the moment—and that as it unfolds it’s also slipping away, becoming a faded snapshot destined to spend eternity filed away in my unreliable memory …neglected, and eventually forgotten. Time really is an illusion. There is only now. Yet, now is ever changing like the clouds and the shoreline, seemingly moving forward like a man in a blinding snowstorm whose footprints are erased by the driving winds, leaving him unable to see where he came from or where he is going.

Holding on to a moment is impossible. It’s like trying to capture the twinkling of a star. I remember holding my infant son and feeling the synchronal love flowing like milky waves between us, and then becoming startled with the smothering epiphany that this precious infant of mine was going to some day disappear… and I would no longer have a baby. I cried into his feathery hair with this suffocating awareness, trying to remember everything about him as he cooed and snuggled into me, oblivious of the moments that lay before him; resolutely waiting to escort him into manhood.

My son is nearly thirty now, and although we share an unbreakable bond, and I wouldn’t trade him in for that baby that I once held, I sometimes tear up when I stumble upon his three legged teddy bear, or his favorite childhood blanket; caught off guard by the intensity of the moment…and the memories.

There is a charged expectancy hidden within the folds of each moment as we reach for something more…and also a tender desperation as we let go…eventually leaving behind everything. The exchange is bittersweet…yet, with optimism, we bravely do it every day. This is life and how it’s done. We were made for this, wired just the right way so it makes sense to us, and doesn’t scare us into our shells like terrified turtles.

Our hearts are a great depository holding the sundry moments of our lives like the yellowed pages of an old book. These sanguine moments have changed our paths, our thinking, and even chosen who we will love. They are our heart's alibi proving that we have lived, in this moment, and this moment alone.